


Remember

by Arikitteh



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: A Lack Of Fondness Challenge, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-02
Updated: 2017-01-02
Packaged: 2018-09-14 03:03:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9157270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arikitteh/pseuds/Arikitteh
Summary: An exploration of Seven of Nine's mental state during her first days being disconnected from the Borg Collective.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Was challenged to write a short piece for a character I hate. I choose Voyager's Seven of Nine. Strangely, I don't hate this and might be tempted to write more for Seven in the future. Lyrics at the end of this work are from the song 'Remember' by Disturbed, from their album 'Believe'. It's also where I pulled the title from.

Blackness, nothingness. After spending most of your life being linked to the hive mind that is the Borg Collective, having no thoughts but your own was frightening. The young woman was thrown into a state of panic, one she couldn't awaken from. Something was keeping her unconscious, asleep in the void.

_Panic. Confusion. Anxiety._

Mentally she reached out, searching for the connection to the hive. Where were the thoughts of others? Where was that comfort that had been there, the stream of thoughts, ever since she'd been assimilated as a young child? Why couldn't she hear them?

She was unaware that she'd started to struggle against the restraints that held her down to the medical bed in Voyager's sickbay. Voyager's Emergency Medical Holographic Doctor program reached out to make an adjustment on the cordical stimulator that rested against the Borg female's temple. The cordical stimulator caused a temporary adjustment in which sections of the brain were stimulated into releasing more chemicals. A simple increase in the right ones could naturally keep a patient sound asleep during operations and various other painful procedures.

Such technology lessened the need to administer various drugs to induce a sleeping state. Voyager's doctor had a lot of work to do on his latest patient. The immediate concern was disabling and removing the technology that would allow the woman to attempt to reconnect with the Borg Collective, as well as anything that would leave her as an immediate threat to the crew or the ship.

A few things were making the job challenging, first the fact that the woman's body had become dependent on much of the technology for it's basic needs. The Borg hadn't removed organs where they didn't need to. Rather they'd just introduced implants to take over for normal bodily functions. Things like the natural digestive system had been bypassed for technology that took in energy directly from Borg Ships and used such as sustenance. Not only supplying the energy needed for the implants, but converting a portion of the energy into a sort of biomatter that was dumped directly into the bloodstream.

This gave the organic tissues the nutrition needed for life, and caused the digestive tract, stomach, intestines, and everything else to atrophy from lack of use. It was the same with other natural organic bodily functions, most of them had become atrophied to the point that removing all of the technology immediately would be a death sentence for the woman.

It was a blessing in disguise that the hologram was acting CMO on Voyager. He could interface with the medical database directly, making searching through it for ways to reverse the damage and disuse of such natural functions relatively easy. Immediately he started to develop a treatment program that would slowly ease her off the dependance on the technology and restore her body back to it's natural state.

Until he could do just that, clear out enough of the implants to make her less of an immediate threat, she would need to be kept sedated or surrounded by forcefields meant to scramble and block any attempts at contacting the Borg. The Doctor chose sedation while she was under his care. He felt it more humane than keeping her in a cramped cell. At least this way, she wouldn't realize she was isolated, alone.

 

* * *

 

Seven didn't know which was worse, being in Sickbay, heavily sedated left alone and feeling powerless to escape the panic that came from realizing she had no thoughts but her own left in her mind. Or being awake and under constant guard, the forcefields in place around the makeshift cell where she was being kept in the cargo bay a constant reminder that she was cut off from trying to reconnect with the Borg Collective. The comfort of the hive mind denied to her, possibly for the rest of her life.

At least while she was awake she could look for distractions, anything to prevent her from giving into the anxiety that gnawed along the fringes of her thoughts. Even something as simple as pacing around the small area she'd been given provided just enough of a distraction to keep her from sinking completely into madness.

Even then, she would have given up if it hadn't been for the Doctor's interest in her. He was tending to more than just her physical needs on his regular visits. His probing questions as to her mental state had caused him to understand she needed a purpose, something that would keep her mind occupied and give her a sense of worth. There had to be something they could find, some job she could do that would not only challenge her mind, but let her contribute as well.

At first the Doctor brought her small tasks. Things she could easily do while being kept in her cell. Things like analyzing data from long range scans, or various experiments the Doctor had been doing in the lab. Seven found she started to look forward to these small tasks. A sense of self-worth returned to her. She had a purpose, however small.

Yet it was also inefficient. If she could only link Voyager's crew into one hive mind, data could be analyzed and given at the speed of thought. There would be no misunderstandings due to the imprecise nature of language. When presented with pure thought, you could see and understand everything in the way it was intended.

She tried to explain this to the Doctor, being a computer, she felt he would be most qualified to understand it.

Yet there was more to it than what she explained. There was an honesty of feelings, emotions, when such a hive mind. There were never any doubts or fear when interacting with another. You always knew, never needed to question feelings. Also, all of your individual experiences from before the hive mind were added into the collective consciousness. It was immortality of a sort, as long as the hive mind existed, even if only in one being, then your memories would live on. Long after your physical body had died.

It wasn't the thought of immortality that she missed. It was being able to tap into those memories. Being able to see pieces of countless lives from cultures and life forms scattered all across the galaxy. In such a sea of imperfection, she had found perfection. Perfection in those moments of life, the moments of joy, happiness, bliss. The moments that made the struggles and imperfections worth living. They would remain with the Collective, always.

If she were to live now, as an individual, who would remember her life? Who would record those brief moments of perfection among her struggle? Who would look at her accomplishments now and find worth in any of it?

_Would anything she did now matter... To anyone?_

 

_"If I can_  
_Remember_  
_To know this will_  
_Conquer me_  
_If I can_  
_Just walk alone_  
_And try to escape_  
_Into me."_

_'Remember' - Disturbed_


End file.
